"
I knew the Lord was there. I just
didn't
know where to find him."
By
Robert R. Schwarz
Note: This blog was posted originally
in December, 2012. An update of it
appears at the end.
It was a good life for eight-year-old
Lewie Beck: his family loved him , and he enjoyed the amenities of a solid
middle class suburb, the status of a gifted student, and athletic prowess on the soccer field. Then came the day when he and his ten-year-old
sister Maria were crossing that street at
school . A car hit them, so hard that Lewis'
head cracked the windshield.
That was 22 years ago. Today Lewie's body and mind need a
lot of spare parts—which , his mother Maureen
says, " are not on the horizon." But his Christian heart , people will tell
you, is brand new.
 |
| Selling coffee with his cousin at the farmer's market |
I
first met Lewie on a chilly October morning this year in a parking lot across from the Palatine
train depot where he and his cousin were selling El Salvador coffee at a
farmer's market. Lewie was easy to spot.
He was the five-foot-four-inch guy who,
when he handed a bag of coffee beans to a customer , appeared as if he had once fallen from a three-story
building, breaking bones and wrenching muscles that never mended. His voice when thanking customers for their purchase rolled slowly out of his mouth in soft-sounding
vowels . Some customers —those either in
a rush or choosing to rudely ignore whatever Lewis was saying to them—missed
Lewie's words of appreciation for their patronage.
But those of us who took a moment to
share some of our humanness with Lewie got the pleasure of seeing a man smiling as much with his dark brown eyes as he did with
his face. It was a face that made you want to believe that here was a man who,
though terribly handicapped by a
traumatic brain injury ( TBI ) , was
excited to be alive and incapable of uttering a deceptive word.
Lew and I talked about his and his
cousin's coffee business, which that day was ending its second year at this farmer's market. His cousin Mark Monckton came over. "Lew is the reason we started this
business , " he said. "Lew is awesome, high-spirited all the time . "
I wanted to find out what his cousin
meant by "all the time", so I
set up an interview with Lewie and his 57-year-old mother ,
Maureen. A few days later the three of
us were sitting at the dining room table in Maureen's third
floor Arlington Heights condo; it
overlooks a small lake. On the walls hung prints of oil paintings of several Impressionist
masters.
Besides Lewie's sister , Maria, now 32, there is sister Katie, 26. The Becks adopted Lewie and Maria from Catholic Charities. According to Maureen, they had been abused by
their unmarried teenage parents while living in a Philadelphia ghetto. Maureen is now divorced from her retired husband Bob, who shares his Arlington
Heights home with his son.
Lewie, I learned, is known for going out of his way to greet
people. Fr. Bill Zavaski, pastor of the St. James Catholic
church which Lewie attends and where he was baptized and
confirmed, stated: " Lewie is a most remarkable man who always seems to lift your spirit when you are around him. He never seems put out and is always making an
effort to be present to everyone. "
What challenges Lewis ? " Keeping busy," he said. He told me of his weekly Knights of Columbus meetings , the two European cruises his aunt and
grandmother have taken him on (he's also been to Egypt, and Israel ) , and the
preparations he's making to live independently
(doing his own laundry, shopping,
cooking , and accessing public
transportation by himself ) with a
roommate at Orchard Village, a social services agency in Skokie. He graduated
from Prospect High School and, until the
scheduling of multiple classes became unmanageable after two semesters, attended the University of Wisconsin at
Whitewater, Wisconsin. He would read more but his visual mobility in tracking printed lines is
impaired. He'd also watch a bit more
television but the family's austerity program won't allow it.
" A lot of people feel sorry
for Lewie and let him slide, " Maureen said. " I hate that. They do things for him which he should do for
himself. They underestimate him. "
That
Violent Accident
 |
| With Mom, Maureen |
Our conversation turned to the
accident which put Lewis in a coma for a month and in the hospital for five
months. ( His sister Maria suffered only a minor
concussion.) Details are best described
by an article Lewie wrote at age 14 in
the summer issue of a Rehabilitation and Childhood Trauma newsletter:
" At the Kensington and Windsor crosswalk we [
his sister and he were returning to school after lunch ]
went to cross the street but we didn't make it. Boom! We were
both hit by a car. [ According to Maureen, the crossing guard did not see the
car nor did the driver see the two children . ] My mom and Katie were riding
their bikes to meet us when they saw two figures in the middle of the street. My mom got hyper when she saw it was us. An
ambulance was called and we went to the hospital.
" All of my family came and
wept over me… [ When Lewie came out of his coma, a nurse asked him what did the words on his
Bart Simpson tee-shirt say. Lewie accurately replied : "Aye caramba, dude ! " The room erupted in laughter. ] Slowly
I began to improve…Parts of my brain were injured and can't do what they used
to . I had to relearn many things , like walking and talking.
" Sometimes I feel frustrated
when I can't retrieve the words I'm thinking about. Some people still have trouble understanding
me. I have to repeat myself a lot… Because it takes me a longtime to talk,
people sometimes turn away while I'm still talking.
" I can't write very well because my right hand
shakes too much, and my left hand is so slow that the rest of the [school ] class is
onto something else before I'm done writing one word. Even my legs shake ,and
sometimes people think I'm kicking them.
" I wish I didn't have an adult
with me all the time…. It's a real pain having someone with you everywhere you
go , every second of every day.
"If I hadn't been in the
accident, I'd be just like everyone else…But importantly, I'm alive…My prayer
for all of us who have fallen in life is to pick yourself up and start all over
from where you left off. "
Most of the traumatic effects of Lewie's accident are still with him. The driver , said his mother, has never communicated with the
family. There was a cash settlement from
the accident , which, Maureen said "will be sufficient " to pay for her son's $4,000 monthly fee at
Orchard Village. The settlement money is invested and in a trust, she said,"
safely put away from scoundrels. " Recent data show that half a million
hospital emergency visits for TBI are made
annually by children aged 0 to 14 .
Perhaps Lewie's darkest hour occurred five years ago when he had to break
off a romantic relationship with a woman
also afflicted with TBI. Both at the time were patients at a rehabilitation
center in Wisconsin. Lewie turned silent
when his mother summarized the
affair.
I asked Lewie if he wanted to talk in depth about his faith life. He
nodded approval. Had he ever lost his
faith in God ? " Not really,"
he said , obviously unsure about his own
answer. His mother suddenly stood up , saying tactfully, "I think I should step out for awhile.
"
When she did, Lewie continued, his face showing painful thoughts. "I knew the Lord was there." He paused, tears now on his cheeks. " I just didn't know where to find Him.
It was much easier to find Him before the accident. "
" Are you angry with God for
allowing it to happen," I asked.
" No. Things happen."
" Do you pray?"
" Yes. Silently."
Maureen returned to the table while
her son was quoting his favorite Bible verse (John 3:16 ) : " ' For God so
loved the world that he gave His only Son,
so that everyone who believes in Him
might not perish but have eternal life. ' "
Maureen smiled affectionately at her son. " I have to make some observations
about this faith topic ," she
began. " The one remarkable thing
that Lewie does which few people can is—" . Her son finished his mother's remark
with—"touch people's hearts."
" It's amazing, " Maureen
continued. "I've seen him interact
with real tough guys, and he brings out all their softness. He seems to emanate
God's grace to people and cuts through all the externals. It's like a
heart-to-heart experience. "
I asked Lewis if he thought some people
had been blessed just by knowing him . He uttered simply , "yeah ."
Mom then related a scene
that climaxed our interview :
When Lewie was 15, his mother's sister, Catherine , suffered a stroke and now lay in a
hospital bed surrounded by her entire family . Lewie hadn’t yet arrived. " We were all so uncomfortable, "
Maureen said. "No one could give my sister much eye contact. No one knew what to do.
Well, Lewie walks into the room and immediately locks eyes with my sister. He was
the only one there who could do this. He had suffered so much in his life that
in this moment he was the only one who could really be present with her. What happened next was so moving and powerful, you can't explain
it. Lewie seemed to be sending out all this grace, and my sister was drinking him in and Catherine began to
glow. It was like she was saying, finally,
someone here who will engage with me !
"
Silence fell upon the three of us. Then Maureen said , "I've see this happen
time and time again where Lewie sends
out comfort like this. "
There was the time at one of the several healing masses she and Lewie attended , Maureen said, when Lewis went
up to a young girl with a traumatic brain injury like his. He hugged her ; her
face glowed. "Those are the moments, " Maureen said, "when I
know why all this was allowed to happen."
Update, July, 2014:
Update, July, 2014:
Louie today lives alone in an Arlington Heights
downtown apartment ; his mother is looking for a roommate for her son. She says
Lewie is still "using his accident
to minister to people. " He sometimes will hold hands with people as they
tell him about their troubles. "He just listens , " she says.
She
related the following account of her
son's cruise to Hawaii last year taken with his 61-year-old aunt ( Maureen's sister ) , Sue Monckton
of nearby Carol Stream: " People [ with problems ] would lineup
on the ship to talk to him because he was so comforting . " On board, Louie met a woman—a Southern Baptist—whose
daughter had died after living a "wild life" . This mother, Maureen said, "had a burning
desire to be reassured that he daughter
was not in hell. Louie, recalling his
own near-death experience in which he had a glimpse of heaven, reassured her that her daughter was not in hell.
"
 |
| Lewie at Mass with his father in June, 2014 |
Though quite ill upon embarking on this cruise, Lewie's aunt told Maureen, "Nothing will stand in my way from taking Lewie on this
cruise. " She died last March; Lewie was devastated. "He loved his aunt," his mother said.
Since then, Lewie has desired to help
"promote world peace" and wants to go to Rome and meet the Pope.
###
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© 2013 , 2014 Robert R. Schwarz
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